Introduction

Dodge (1969b, p. 156) has indicated that in the early days of the development of military standards during World War II, a distinction became apparent between acceptance sampling plans, on the one hand, and acceptance quality control, on the other. The former are merely specific sampling plans, which, when instituted, prescribe conditions for acceptance or rejection of the immediate lot inspected. The later may be compared to process quality control, which utilizes various indicators (such as control charts) and strategies (such as process capability studies) to maintain and improve existing levels of quality in a production process. In like manner, acceptance quality control exploits various acceptance-sampling plans as tactical elements in overall strategies designed to achieve desired ends. Such strategies utilize elements of systems engineering, industrial psychology, and, of course, statistics and probability theory, together with other diverse disciplines, to bring pressures to bear to maintain and improve the quality levels of submitted product. For example, in the development of the Army Ordnance sampling tables in 1942, Dodge (1969b, p. 156) points out that

basically the ‘‘acceptance quality control’’ system that was developed encompassed the concept of protecting the consumer from getting unacceptably defective material, and encouraging the producer in the use of process quality control by varying the quantity and severity of acceptance inspections in direct relation to the importance of the characteristics inspected, and in inverse relation to the goodness of the quality level as indicated by those inspections.